


Get Out of Your Own Way

by theepiccek



Category: Madam Secretary
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 12:56:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5334935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theepiccek/pseuds/theepiccek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You should invite your boyfriend over for dinner”, her father had said. Somehow he’d known that there was someone even before he knew exactly who they were inviting.</p>
<p>(and the can of worms they would be opening)</p>
<p>Or: the lead up to the most awkward family dinner ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get Out of Your Own Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magnetgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I hope you enjoy this, I had so much fun writing about fun McCord families. And I was so happy to see that you wanted Stevie POV, since that was exactly what I wanted to write. 
> 
> Also, this is quite clearly set in a weird in between episode time early in season 2. It's still mostly canon compliant, but the show definitely outpaced this fic much quicker than expected (as in, basically as soon it was written). 
> 
> I still really enjoyed exploring Stevie & Harrison, so I very much hope you enjoy reading it!

Sitting cross legged on her bed, and staring at her closet, Stevie McCord sighs. 

She knows this barrel of nerves in her stomach is the normal reaction of a normal twenty year old inviting her normal boyfriend over for a normal family dinner for the first time.

But normal has long since left the station. 

\--

“You should invite your boyfriend over for dinner”, her father had said. Somehow he’d known that there was _someone_ even before he knew exactly who they were inviting. 

(and the can of worms they would be opening)

“Of course we still want Harrison to come to dinner”, her mother had said, after their secret had been blown wide open by crisis. 

“Are we just going to not talk about the fact that Stevie’s boyfriend is barely three months out of rehab?” Alison had wondered over breakfast one morning when she thought Stevie was out of earshot. 

“Yeah, because this is going to go so well”, Jason had snarked after being reminded by Henry of the dinner as he rushed out the door that morning.

\--

Somehow, and Stevie still isn’t entirely sure how they’ve managed it, just somehow, the fact that the First Son is dating the Eldest Daughter of the Secretary of State has managed to stay a secret. 

The fear of tabloid headlines had made keeping it secret that much easier. And the thrill, well, she can’t deny that helps. 

But then.

Air Force One goes dark, and the Vice President is in surgery. 

And agents are threatening to break down the door to their hotel room.

And her mother is President for a day. 

 

And nothing is secret anymore.

\-- 

The word _Boyfriend_ has never quite fit Stevie’s life. 

_Boyfriend_ is a word that belongs more to fumbling hands on sofas in dark rooms, and quick kisses in hallways or spending hours in a coffee shop just to be together. 

_Boyfriend_ goes with all the things that she has had to give up. Even with Harrison, who perhaps understands the most, and the least, of anyone she knows. He has had longer to learn to live with it, but any cares he may have had about how the Secret Services have told him to act have long since left him, replaced with apathy and heroin.

\--

A crash shatters the silence in her room - it’s the familiar sound of Alison fighting with Jason over space in the bathroom. Stevie can see it all happening in her head - the elbows seeking the ribs of the other, the quick bites of sarcasm. 

Rather than refereeing, she lowers herself fully onto her bed, staring intently at the moulding on the ceiling. 

\--

The heroin. 

Finding the bag in his jacket was one of the biggest shocks of her life. She understands now, how people say that time stands still when their life shatters into pieces around them.

_Trust me,_ he says. Trust that it’s old, that he had forgotten it was there, trust that he is as clean as he promised her he would stay.

But they are both CIA brats, and spycraft was as much a part of their growing up as baseball and apple pie, so Stevie knows that Harrison can see that as much as she wants to, she doesn’t quite believe him. 

\--

Once upon a time, her life had been hers. Back at Lovell, in the bubble of her dorm and classes, before anyone knew who she was, before her life was open for display. 

And maybe, back in those days, it wouldn’t have mattered who she chose to date. It wouldn’t matter whose apartment she was seen leaving at 2am. 

So she knows that starting this … thing with Harrison is a mistake. In the light of the day there are dozens of reasons that this is a bad idea, ranging from the potential for heartbreak, to Harrison’s recent stint in rehab, all the way to actual National Security concerns. 

But at the first touch of his lips to hers, she can’t quite bring all any of those reasons to the surface. And as his hands trail up her ribs, and her hands find their way into his hair, she allows herself to forget that they are anyone other than who they are in that moment.

\--

Over the months of summer, Stevie has had Harrison to herself, had their relationship to themselves. There may be one or two agents who are aware, or suspect, and a few of their friends know, but whenever they are in public they hide behind the eccentricity Harrison has cultivated in recent years. They are young, and a little wild, and in Washington that means the press will only see what they want to see, rather than see things that don’t exist. 

Stevie is picking at the skin around her thumbs when the sound of the front door opening makes her raise her head. But the sound of heels on hardwood quickly filters up to her - her mother then, not Harrison. 

\--

Just under six months from their first date-that-wasn’t-a-date, the thousand cuts begin to make themselves known. 

There are moments where it's still magical. Mornings where they lay together in bed, allowing the sunlight to dance over their naked skin, laughing and talking about nothing, and everything. But these moments are becoming few and far between, and are being overtaken by moments filled with tension. Moments where she is reminded of all the things she wants in this world, and of all the things she cannot have.

Harrison and her are so far from a normal couple, that she barely remembers what normal couples do with their time. How do they learn more about each other if they aren’t pressed against each other in the floor of a limo? Arthur was close, but he was a distraction, a reminder of how far she had strayed from where she wanted to be. 

Even if normal is no longer a winning hand for her, she still wants the option to play towards it. She's been pushing herself back to normal - for a McCord. She wants to bring back the Stevie she was before her mother was the Secretary of State. Before she had to worry about what might end up in the press about her, what her mother might say or do or be involved in that might break Stevie's heart (or vice versa). Mostly, she just wants the opportunity to be herself. 

Having Harrison in her life... 

In another life he might have been perfect. It might have been a fairytale, and a beautiful happy ending. Instead, Stevie sits on her bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to her family around the house, knowing deep down inside that it needs to end. That she cannot be a full person while she's dating him. She will never be more than Stephanie McCord, Daughter of the Secretary of State, Girlfriend of Harrison Dalton: First Son And Former Addict. 

The sound of a car pulling up, and the voices of nearly a dozen ex-military-now-Secret-Service agents filters up to her, breaking her chain of thought. 

Another sigh, and she rolls herself across to the edge of her bed. She stands up, pulls her shoulders back and her chin high. Brushes dust off her dress and pulls herself together. Pushes the thoughts of breaking up with her boyfriend out of her mind for the time being, walks out her door, down the stairs, and welcomes said boyfriend into her home for the first, and probably last, time.

\--

In the end, the dinner isn't a total disaster. 

Jason doesn't rant (too much) about the flaws in the President's campaign promises. 

Alison even manages to completely avoid the topic of heroin or rehab.

Her mother is distracted, clearly, but also obviously impressed with Harrison as a person, something that hasn't been true for a number of years. 

Her father's glare even manages to stay packed away for the evening.

As Stevie leaves him on the sidewalk, with a caste kiss, she marvels that the dinner could have been much worse. 

 

 

But no, the disaster comes much later.

\--

_fin_


End file.
